Friday, November 10, 2006

Saturday 4th November

We got ourselves packed up early but before we left, Jorje cut back Iain's side stand and welded on a new plate as it tended to fall over in the wind- not a terribly useful property in a bike. Jorje didn't even want paid for his efforts but we left our contibution in the little wall mounted box anyway which one of the previous guests had put up.

We headed down Routa 76 towards Ventana, stopping to watch a classic car rally drive past with all sorts of cars including old Mercedes and huge American fords etc. The landscape even changed, becoming green and lush resembling at times a sort of Swiss resort and then at other times reminding me of East Lothian and Aberdeenshire for some reason.

We stopped off in Saldungary for some provisions and after being told off by a friendly policeman for parking the bikes on the wrong side of the road, we headed off down a gravel track to the reservoir south of the town for a bit of free camping. We drove off the track on to the grass and set up camp next to the reservoir a bit away from the track but there was no one about anyway. It felt great to be away from the main roads and in the wilderness. You could see hundreds of birds flocking over the reservoir and landing in the reeds nearby. It gets dark about 8pm so we got busy with the cooking and enjoyed a bottle of wine while watching the wildlife. It was a full moon and very bright but you could still see the stars. I'm only used to seeing the stars in the northern hemisphere so will need to learn what the constellations are down here. That night, the wind went slightly mad and the tent felt actually started to bend inwards quite a lot which gave us some cause for concern but amazingly, both tents remained intact and the bikes were even still where we'd left them.